Pioneering Osteopathy

Dr. Betsy MacCracken, MD, MPH, interviewed by Dr. Michael Seffinger, DO

at her home in Fresno, California
September 8, 2005

We talk about her history and her family’s history and the relationship between her life and her family’s life and the development of osteopathic history in the state of California.

Dr. Seffinger: Would you like me to ask questions of you and talk or would you like to just start talking and tell me about yourself – how would you feel most comfortable?
Dr. MacCracken: I don’t know which the best way to go is.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. I can start you off and if you want you know keep going and answer questions and talk that’s fine. First tell us who you are, where you were born and how did you get involved with osteopathic medicine. Okay.
Dr. MacCracken: I am Betsy MacCracken. I was born in Beatrice, Nebraska in 1914. Both of my parents were osteopathic physicians.
Dr. Seffinger: And your parents were graduates of what college of osteopathic medicine?
Dr. MacCracken: My parents were graduates of Kirksville.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and you lived in Nebraska until what age?
Dr. MacCracken: We lived in Nebraska until I was about seven and then we moved to Albuquerque, but the altitude was too high for Dad and we eventually came to California.
Dr. Seffinger: Your Dad had an illness of some kind?
Dr. MacCracken: Dad was an old tubercular. The doctors in Nebraska advised that he needed to get out of those rigorous winter climates.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, then you moved to Fresno, did you?
Dr. MacCracken: Yes, we moved to Fresno.
Dr. Seffinger: And that would have been about 19…?
Dr. MacCracken: 1923.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, so when you came here you went to elementary school in Fresno?
Dr. MacCracken: I went to school here in Fresno. I went to Fresno State College where I graduated with an AB degree and a special secondary in physical education.
Dr. Seffinger: Oh really. Were you active in sports?
Dr. MacCracken: Yes!
Dr. Seffinger: What kind of sports?
Dr. MacCracken: Baseball in particular. I was not too active in basketball, but baseball was my love.
Dr. Seffinger: Interesting. Was that softball or hardball?
Dr. MacCracken: We played women’s baseball which used a hardball but a little larger size, but not as large as your softball. In the springtime we played mixed baseball out on the athletic field with five men and five women on a team. Women had to pitch. Men had to catch and play first base. I played with the faculty men. The faculty women didn’t want to play and so a bunch of us that weren’t sorority people – we played with the faculty men.
Dr. Seffinger: That must have been fun. When did you decide that you wanted to become a physician?
Dr. MacCracken: I thought I wanted to be a math teacher, but after a couple of years as a math major I came under the influence of a very dull professor and I said, “No way”. Now, if I’d ever known anything about statistics then I might have stayed on as a math major, so I decided to follow in the family’s footsteps, but the family said you’ve got to graduate from Fresno State first and so I looked around to see what would fill my requirements as a major and fill my premed requirements. Much of it would be fulfilled in the physical education department and so that’s how I drifted into being sports minded into a physical education major.
Dr. Seffinger: And then was there ever a discussion at home whether you were to go to an MD or DO school?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh mercy no! No question about where I’d go to school. Dad was on the board then.
Dr. Seffinger: Of which school?
Dr. MacCracken: COPNS.
Dr. Seffinger: And so you’re going to go to that school, did you have to pay tuition to that school?
Dr. MacCracken: I did the first year and then Dr. Abbott said, “Well the Brigham family never paid tuition there’s no reason that she should and so after the first year I went through tuition free.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. And this was about what year?
Dr. MacCracken: I graduated in 1940.
Dr. Seffinger: 1940, so you went from 1936 to 1940? So you went to school just at the end of the depression?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. When you entered the osteopathic profession can you tell us about what that was like or better yet what was it like going to school at that time? Can you describe to us what it was like being a student and going to school at that time period?
Dr. MacCracken: I don’t know that it was any different from going to school, your studies were different. There were changes in the college in terms of construction and having to move things around, and a certain amount of disruption that way, but other than that I can’t say it was much different from going anywhere to school.
Dr. Seffinger: Do you remember some of the courses that you studied or enjoyed?
Dr. MacCracken: Well, I always enjoyed anatomy but then I’d had a lot of anatomy as a physical education major. Amongst the lecture courses, I think one of the outstanding lecturers was Harriet Connor - the gynecologist. She could just stand up there and talk without ever using a note - a marvelous lecturer, marvelous physician and I’ve heard men say, “Well, if Harriet Connor said so, I’ll go along with it”. She was not a surgeon.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you recall Grace Bell?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh, I knew Grace Bell very well. When I first went there, Grace Bell was still teaching chemistry, but in later years Grace Bell became one of my closest friends.
Dr. Seffinger: Really! Well one of the things that we found out was that Grace Bells…ah…she has a file at UCI, I think it is, but it’s locked until the year 2015. We can’t see it. We don’t know why she locked her file, but she’s the only one that has a file like that that is closed. So we don’t know much about Grace. Anything you can tell about her would be helpful to us.
Dr. MacCracken: I’m just trying to think about…
Dr. Seffinger: We know that she started out teaching, like in 1928 or so. She didn’t go into practice. I believe her husband was in practice.
Dr. MacCracken: Grace was certainly teaching chemistry. She was a very strict teacher. I can’t remember at which point she was elevated to being the Dean, but as I say in later years - I mean after I gotten out of the Navy and was really back with the Health Department - Grace and I became good friends.
Dr. Seffinger: She was the first person to receive the MD degree. And that’s about all we know. Is there anything else about her that you would like to share?
Dr. MacCracken: Grace was a soroptimist. (This is an international professional women’s group)
Dr. Seffinger: If anything comes up let us know.
Dr. MacCracken: I’ve got a lot of pictures of her.
Dr. Seffinger: That would be nice to share that with us at some point. Let’s go back to 1936 to 1940, that era. Your dad was still involved with the school. Was your mom also teaching or…?
Dr. MacCracken: No, Mother was never involved.
Dr. Seffinger: And what did she do?
Dr. MacCracken: Mother didn’t practice at all after we left Nebraska. In 1929 dad was seriously ill with some sort of jaundice. It wasn’t ever diagnosed in those days. He dropped from 180 to 114 pounds. It was necessary for Mother to get back into practice. She still had a drugless license. She had to go down to Los Angeles and take an oral exam to get her full license, which she was able to do.
Dr. Seffinger: That’s interesting because she had a practice in Nebraska which was a drugless type district?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh yes, but she didn’t do much.
Dr. Seffinger: And then coming to California...
Dr. MacCracken: She never practiced really at all until she was forced on account of Dad’s illness to get back into practice.
Dr. Seffinger: Could you still get a drugless license back then in California? Did you have that choice?
Dr. MacCracken: Well, when she came in she took just on restroprosteve. The drug was licensed.
Dr. Seffinger: Oh, I see, so there was one?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah, but Dad whatever his qualifications were made it possible for him to have a full license
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and so she went after the full license to be able to help build his practice. I see. She did that for awhile and he got better obviously?
Dr. MacCracken: Yes and after that she did some practicing. Dad had a home and an office and she was often in the office with him.
Dr. Seffinger: Do you have siblings?
Dr. MacCracken: I have two siblings.
Dr. Seffinger: Are they doing practicing or do they practice.
Dr. MacCracken: No, no.
Dr. Seffinger: You are the only one that went into osteopathic?
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and did you get married, have kids?
Dr. MacCracken: No.
Dr. Seffinger: No. It says you devoted your career in osteopathic medicine and then later in public health.
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right.
Dr. Seffinger: So, after you graduated, did you train at L.A. County Hospital, intern or residency or…
Dr. MacCracken: Our senior year was always spent at the hospital as externs, but following that I interned at Monto Santo Hospital which was a hospital owned by the Los Angeles Clinical Group which was a group of nine specialists. It was unusual for a clinical group to exist in those days; I mean a group of physicians. We banded together that way. As I said I interned at Monto Santo Hospital. I came to Fresno, practiced just a few months and they used to say you could starve for four years before you could ever make a living and then the war broke out and I joined the Navy. In the navy I was always in Administrative positions and as such began to know that particularly middle management was where my strengths lay.
Dr. Seffinger: Did it bother you that you were not allowed to be a physician or medical officer?
Dr. MacCracken: No it didn’t bother me. I was assigned over as an administrator in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. It didn’t bother me.
Dr. Seffinger: Some of the people have commented that it bothered them, so…
Dr. MacCracken: It didn’t bother me at all. I was standing on my own two feet, frankly, the first time I wasn’t in my father’s shadow. Now, I don’t mean to denigrate my father any, but you always wondered whether you got something because you earned it or because you were your father’s daughter.
Dr. Seffinger: Was your father prominent and well known?
Dr. MacCracken: Dad was very prominent and extremely well known in California particularly in organization affairs. It was just one of those things.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you get involved in organizational politics or did you stay away from that?
Dr. MacCracken: No, I did get involved to some extent when I was in Los Angeles because when I came back after the military I went into practice with a pediatrician. He was really my mentor in a sense because I didn’t know that much about pediatrics. At that point, yes, I was active in the Los Angeles City Osteopathic Society and was president at one time.
Dr. Seffinger: Were there a lot of people attending the monthly meetings at that time?
Dr. MacCracken: We had a fairly active group in Los Angeles.
Dr. Seffinger: About how many people would attend?
Dr. MacCracken: It’s hard to say because there were other osteopathic groups in the county and even within L. A. city. There was a Westside group more or less. I would say we had forty or fifty at our meetings.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and this would be like a continuing education and you’d have some kind of lecture as well or just business meetings?
Dr. MacCracken: A lot of it was business.
Dr. Seffinger: All right. So you went into the navy and you were an administrator there. Was there anything you’d like to share about that experience or do you want to proceed after you got out of the navy?
Dr. MacCracken: The only thing I can say there is that it taught me my love for administration. They were writing the medical history of the war in our office and the men that were writing the history would take me to some of the interviews on account of my medical knowledge that I could pass some notes and tell them what it meant, but that was the only time that my medical experience counted.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, I guess when the war was over was when you left the navy or did you stay in?
Dr. MacCracken: No I left the navy.
Dr. Seffinger: Then what did you do?
Dr. MacCracken: That’s was when I came back to Los Angeles. Dr. Abbott was starting the graduate school and I did a year at the college in pediatrics and gynecology.
Dr. Seffinger: Was that for a degree…?
Dr. MacCracken: No, it was just for extra training. It was at that time that Dr. Watson in Pediatrics needed a new assistant. He took me on.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and so you trained under him or with him or taught …?
Dr. MacCracken: I worked with him. I did some teaching at the college as we all did particularly the junior students. I was on attending staff over at the County Hospital. Somewhere along the line I developed a flair for infectious diseases. I loved the work on the communicable disease ward more than on the straight ward.
Dr. Seffinger: Can you tell me something about the osteopathic care in that era of communicable diseases or infectious diseases?
Dr. MacCracken: The big area was in the treatment of polio and the use of hot packs and passive motion of the affected areas; of particular interest though was the protection of the house-staff and the house-staff were limited in the number of hours they could work. They were kept living at the hospital and they were made to take a mid-morning break and have something to eat and they were well protected health wise. There were three hundred nurses at the medical unit that developed polio.
Dr. Seffinger: Wow, wow and nobody developed polio in Unit Two?
Dr. MacCracken: No. In later years one of our interns did develop polio.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. You had a good record.
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah.
Dr. Seffinger: So, the care of the house-staff and the nurses was such that they didn’t contract the disease from the patients. Did you notice the patients also improved under osteopathic care more so or better than allopathic care at that time?
Dr. MacCracken: I can’t answer that. I don’t know.
Dr. Seffinger: Because you weren’t really monitoring…
Dr. MacCracken: No. That’s right.
Dr. Seffinger: Could you mention a little bit you talked before about your Dad’s work with the flu epidemic in 1918 and his work with his infectious disease patients, with his care, do you remember that?
Dr. MacCracken: In 1918, they always knew where Frank MacCracken had a patient because he tore out the window panes and put up just brown paper covering it and this was in Nebraska in winter time, but he felt they needed the fresh air and not just re-breathing all of the old stale air.
Dr. Seffinger: And his patients also received manipulation as well?
Dr. MacCracken: They probably did.
Dr. Seffinger: Because he used that a lot.
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah that’s right. Certainly in many of your respiratory problems, the rib braising technique that they used to use, but Dad was also one who was a soft tissue man before he attempted any corrections. I have heard some of the MD’s in Fresno say that Frank MacCracken was the best psychiatrist in town and it was because when he lying there and was relaxing them with the soft tissue…
Dr. Seffinger: You mean the patient was lying down?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah…that they would talk and get what was really on their minds off and Dad would work with them from that standpoint.
Dr. Seffinger: Yeah, very interesting and you went on to practice at the County Hospital in infectious disease ward. Did you also use manipulation with your patients other than the polio patients?
Dr. MacCracken: I don’t recall ever having a need to because most of the time I was dealing with a group of under-four-years-of-age and unless they were maybe sick, there wasn’t a need for it.
Dr. Seffinger: And they got better rather rapidly? You didn’t have any antibiotics or did you at that time?
Dr. MacCracken: No. Wait a minute. The antibiotics came in during the war; so, prior to the war we didn’t have anything.
Dr. Seffinger: And was the care remarkably different after the antibiotics came. Did you notice that change?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh yes, certainly people began using them when they could get a hold of them.
Dr. Seffinger: And did you notice the pneumonias in particular changed in terms…?
Dr. MacCracken: I wasn’t in a position to.
Dr. Seffinger: To evaluate that?
Dr. MacCracken: No.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. Did you notice that in the pediatric wards at L. A. County whether the children with pneumonias that had rib-raising did any better then people that didn’t get rib-raising?
Dr. MacCracken: No.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. So then in the 1940s you came out. I think at that time there was a Hill Burton Act around 1948 or so when it came, which leant support to or enabled hospitals to be developed, community hospitals, with some funds - was this from state funds?
Dr. MacCracken: I can’t tell you, but I just know that at the time Hill Burton funds were supposed to be divided, half and half, with the MD’s in town because we wanted to build a new hospital.
Dr. Seffinger: In Fresno?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay
Dr. MacCracken: We had a hospital. In fact, we had a couple, and it came out like 60/30 or something like that.
Dr. Seffinger: You mean the MDs got more of the money?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah, instead of it being 50/50.
Dr. Seffinger: So what happened?
Dr. MacCracken: So the boys were having problems financing the hospital then.
Dr. Seffinger: The boys meaning the osteopathic profession?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah, because they borrowed up to the hilt. A man who had been on the College Board, very prominent executive in southern California, just said to one of his assistants, “Which of our bank accounts can we move”. The result was the boys were able to get the money from the bank because the bank wasn’t about to lose that prominent of an account.
Dr. Seffinger: So the bank released some monies, let them borrow some more, they got the hospital done not only from the Burton funds but also from the bank.
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah and they built the Sierra Hospital. Now prior to that they had Sequoia Hospital. Now Sequoia Hospital was owned by Tom Sample. Tom Sample was known as Sample Sam. Tom Sample was from an old old Fresno family and Tom Sample could do what he wanted to do. He let the DOs practice their; bring their hospital patients there; and then when he retired why the DOs took over the hospital.
Dr. Seffinger: So it was a mixed staff hospital?
Dr. MacCracken: Well, I don’t know whether they took care of the cases there, but they could bring their cases there.
Dr. Seffinger: Oh, and when they transferred them from MDs taking…
Dr. MacCracken: Well, surgical cases, that sort of thing. Those are the only things that I remember really because you were still doing a lot of home deliveries and people weren’t necessarily going to the hospital for the….
Dr. Seffinger: So the DOs had Sequoia Hospital and then they built Sierra Hospital.
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right.
Dr. Seffinger: Are those still standing or…?
Dr. MacCracken: Sierra Hospital is still standing, but it’s not a hospital. Well it’s a long story.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, for another time.
Dr. MacCracken: Yes, well it involved after we were all MDs and then they went with Community Hospital in terms of a buying power of supplies and what have you and it ended up that Sierra got closed. Some of the orthopedic men wished they’d known about it sooner because they would have like to taken it over, but it’s become…there is some outpatient stuff there; the committee on aging is there; I mean it’s no longer a hospital.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, let’s go back to 1950 or so and you became involved with the college teaching in the 1950s is that right or was it the 1940s?
Dr. MacCracken: I was teaching at the college, yes in the 1950s, the time that I was with Jimmy Watson and before I went to the University of California, School of Public Health.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you then become an administrator at the school as well?
Dr. MacCracken: I became an administrator to the extent that I became head of the pediatrics department for the college clinic.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, is that mean the pediatric department at the college as well or just the clinic?
Dr. MacCracken: Actually I was already working to some extent as the assistant head of pediatrics and with Dr. Percival having to get out of the picture I sort of inherited both.
Dr. Seffinger: And how long did you do that for?
Dr. MacCracken: That was just about three years.
Dr. Seffinger: Three years, okay. And then this brings us to about 1960?
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right.
Dr. Seffinger: And then at that point you made a career decision.
Dr. MacCracken: At that point, I don’t know what I sensed, in one way or another, or whether I was sensing this movement towards the MD degree, I don’t think I was, but I was sensing…there was unrest as far as I personally was concerned that this wasn’t what I wanted to do the rest of my life and I had done enough work already you see with the well-baby clinics in the Health Department that I decided I was going to go that direction and I talked to the City Health Officer, whom I knew very well and he felt it was a good idea and so I applied to the University of California School of Public Health.
Dr. Seffinger: Berkeley?
Dr. MacCracken: Berkeley…and was accepted on the basis of my AB degree from Fresno State and with the recommendations that I had from the Health Department; no problems.
Dr. Seffinger: And then you took a one year or two year program.
Dr. MacCracken: It was a one year program in Public Health. I was in Public Health Administration. The School of Public Health had all kinds of majors from the nurses to the sanitarians, what have you, health educators, but I took it in Public Health Administration.
Dr. Seffinger: And you got out after a year, what did you do?
Dr. MacCracken: After that I came back to Los Angeles where I became the Northeast District Health Officer. Northeast District was all of the city of Los Angeles, east of the river, there’s not much east of the river, but it did include quite a strip, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Heights, Eagle Rock on up to Glendale.
Dr. Seffinger: And what were your responsibilities in that organization?
Dr. MacCracken: In that position again you were sort of middle management. You were administering a district under the umbrella of policy. You had your responsibilities for a nursing staff, social workers, health educators, you name it, but the key to a middle management whether it was there or later on is having a good staff and seeing to it that the people you get in the various positions are top notch.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you hire them…did you hire people you wanted?
Dr. MacCracken: Well I was able…I might not do the direct hiring I was able to unload some unsatisfactory people and get some more satisfactory people into their positions.
Dr. Seffinger: And things ran pretty smoothly then?
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right and then I left as a District Health Officer and went down to the main headquarters doing a variety of things, even though they put me in the slot of epidemiologist, I was in a position to do whatever needed to be done. Now that may sound strange, but we were getting ready for the potential merger with hospitals, and so I was looking at things that we needed to preserve and building up their strengths.
Dr. Seffinger: Could you explain a little bit more about what you are talking about. This is about 1962, 3 or 4 around there is that what you are talking about? When you say merger is possible, what’s going on there, what’s happening?
Dr. MacCracken: It was closer to 1970.
Dr. Seffinger: So we are way up in to the 70’s? What was happening that made this happen?
Dr. MacCracken: For some reason they were merging the County Hospital System with the Health Department System and it was going to be the dog wagging the tail and the Hospitals only cared about you when you were sick. They didn’t care about preventive medicine or anything and the question was what you could build up to make sure that certain things stayed and that was just part of it and so certainly your infectious disease control whether it was VD, TB, or Acute communicable disease was one of the things you really had to make sure you had very strong people there, which we did.
Dr. Seffinger: So you were involved with the Public Health Department mostly in preventive care, is that right? But these people would get sick in the hospital too. Wouldn’t there be infectious disease problems in the hospital? Were you not…?
Dr. MacCracken: We were not concerned with infectious diseases in the hospital. They had some excellent people, some very good people.
Dr. Seffinger: I see and so you were trying now that the system was merging, Public Health with the Hospital System and you had to build up a strong foundation or policies, or procedures to preserve the integrity of the Public Health System and strengthen it?
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right, to a certain extent. You had to just make sure that was…and I saw to it that I had people in it that knew more than I knew.
Dr. Seffinger: So you could delegate responsibilities?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah, management wise coordinated things with higher up. I had amongst the things I had to do was to edit the article for the monthly morbidity report. It was one of the things I had to do.
Dr. Seffinger: For the pediatrics or for everybody?
Dr. MacCracken: No, this had nothing to do with the pediatric department.
Dr. Seffinger: So this is total…
Dr. MacCracken: Total Health Department, plague, noise, cat scratch fever, I’ve forgotten some of the things I ever wrote for that.
Dr. Seffinger: So you were with them for how many years?
Dr. MacCracken: Downtown, from 69 to 76.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. Did you have any accomplishments that you would like to share with us that you think you are particularly proud of during that time period?
Dr. MacCracken: Again, I often was given other kinds of assignments besides just what I actually had to do. In other words, there were times that I had to represent the Health Officer at some meetings - maybe meetings that were in conflict or meetings he didn’t want to go to, but I found myself filling a variety of needs one way or another. Certainly it was on one of the major committees that were working to keep things going.
Dr. Seffinger: In the County of Los Angeles?
Dr. MacCracken: In the Health Department, yeah. I can’t tell you what we did except I know we met every week.
Dr. Seffinger: At what point did you decide it was time to retire?
Dr. MacCracken: I decided it was time to retire when they were making scapegoats of a few people and one of them had been a former City Health Officer. I was the only doctor in the building one day when somebody came in to get the doctor’s from one of the outlying… because not all of us VD wasn’t in the building there were several palaces to get their time slips - you know signed. I sort of lost my temper with her and she says, “I’m only the messenger I didn’t do these.” I said, “Look sister, if you’re getting that brittle its time you walked across the street to the retirement board”. Cause I’m not going to be made a scapegoat. One thing, they also wanted me to go out to YCLA to a lot of conferences and my back couldn’t take it too. So it was a mixture.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, so you thought it was time to move on.
Dr. MacCracken: Well, compulsory retirement was coming up in another year anyway, so age wise.
Dr. Seffinger: What have you done since?
Dr. MacCracken: Had surgeries.
Dr. Seffinger: Repaired your body, the wear and tear, and then you moved back to Fresno, where you grew up.
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right. My brother-in-law had developed Alzheimer’s. Mother was over 100. She lived to be 105 and it just seemed…my neighborhood was changing…the work I had been doing at the church had come to an end because I had been very active in some church affairs, I was just sort of at a hiatus and so I decided and everybody thought it was a good time for Bet to come back home – which I did.
Dr. Seffinger: You mentioned some other people before began recording – were – in the District Health Office or City Health Department, so you weren’t the only osteopathic physician that went into public health?
Dr. MacCracken: No, and there was always, from the time I could remember, there was always a DO on the City Health Commission. Robert Kolts was a District Health Officer. There was a man by the name of George Schmelzel and he had something to do with emergency services in the health department, I don’t know what they were.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and that was in the 1930s and 1940s.
Dr. MacCracken: No, had been later than that because I came back in the 60s and Bob Kolts was in with the Health Department before that, but I can’t say much about…
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. So when 1962 came along and you had the opportunity to get your MD degree, what were you thinking about at that time, did your Dad…did you decide to do that as well…or how did you look at that situation?
Dr. MacCracken: You really didn’t think about it too much. It was just sort of, well this is the way the tides are going; certainly Dad did it without any compulsion. He said this is the way the tides going. It’s not going to affect the way I practice and it’s probably the political thing to do.
Dr. Seffinger: He was on the Board of Trustees of the school at that time or no?
Dr. MacCracken: Not by then.
Dr. Seffinger: No, but he was still involved with the COA at the time?
Dr. MacCracken: Well, he was getting up in years.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, so he was more towards retirement and then yourself, you were moving more towards public health anyway.
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah that’s right.
Dr. Seffinger: Did it matter to you what you did or people around you did they care?
Dr. MacCracken: No, it didn’t make any difference.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. Did you notice any difference when the osteopathic hospital was built in 1956 when you came into the public system that it was still there? And then later it transitioned into a pediatric…
Dr. MacCracken: Well, the new hospital when it was built, yes and then after the merger there was no need for it. It became the Women and Children’s Hospital because it was ideally suited from the standpoint of the pediatric ward, but particularly from the standpoint of a communicable disease ward.
Dr. Seffinger: Were you involved with that at all.
Dr. MacCracken: No, no.
Dr. Seffinger: I guess there were a lot of transitions in your life time as a doctor. As a student, you had at the college several transitions in the Dean, the president, you have a lot of changes, every year you had a different person during 1936 1940. Did you notice that it made a difference in anything you went through there at the time? Did you notice that it affected anything?
Dr. MacCracken: I can’t say that, but I have often wondered about something. About the end of my freshman year Bill Pritchard retired from being head of manipulation. The man that took his place had been a chiropractor before he became a DO. I always felt that his technique was a bit rough.
Dr. Seffinger: And you had to take the classes from him?
Dr. MacCracken: I had classes from him too, but then having grown up with what…
Dr. Seffinger: On your dad’s technique was on soft tissue…
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah and corrections too, but having grown up with it all my life, that was the one thing that I sensed that his teaching technique was different from what I had experienced otherwise.
Dr. Seffinger: Was there more high velocity manipulations being done after that, you think?
Dr. MacCracken: Probably.
Dr. Seffinger: Do you remember his name?
Dr. MacCracken: Been trying to think of it.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, we’ll look it up somewhere. It’s not O’Meara or one of those guys. It’s probably in the annual here. His name was Litton. What was his first name?
Dr. MacCracken: Doesn’t show right here.
Dr. Seffinger: That’s okay; Dr. Litton, and he took over the manipulation department in 1937 or 38.
Dr. MacCracken: 1937 or 38 certainly he was in 38 and I would say the fall of 1937 because I didn’t have much work under Dr. Pritchard.
Dr. Seffinger: All right. Did you notice the trend in the students at your colleges or your fellow students in more interest in becoming MDs or merging with the MD profession because certainly your time period at the college seemed to generate more student interest in the merging of the professions than previous years.
Dr. MacCracken: There’s Grace Bell.
Dr. Seffinger: Yeah, There’s Grace Bell.
Dr. MacCracken: I can’t say. There was one thing that occurs to me and I don’t know what it did, but I think it was related to the MDs was the famous senior letter which was written, I started to say 1948, I know that Art Miller was one of the writers of it. Art Miller became an orthopedic surgeon. Art Miller joined the Public Health Service and was stationed as a prison doctor back in Springfield and Art Miller still lives there retired after he left the prison. He remained there, but I know Art was one that wrote this famous letter and Sam Sheppard and I can’t remember the others, but it was sort of rebelling about something. I can’t tell you what it was.
Dr. Seffinger: You weren’t too much involved?
Dr. MacCracken: No, I wasn’t involved. I just know that there was this famous senior letter.
Dr. Seffinger: Were you involved with Forrest Grunegun at the time when he became president of the COA just after you graduated?
Dr. MacCracken: My involvement with Forest Grunegan was down in his office.
Dr. Seffinger: When was that?
Dr. MacCracken: When I was an intern and we were on surgery.
Dr. Seffinger: Was he one of your attendings?
Dr. MacCracken: Well, I was at this famous hospital…
Dr. Seffinger: At Monto Santo?
Dr. MacCracken: Yes, and there was nothing for us particularly to be doing in the afternoons. And so we got to go downtown to the offices and sit in their offices, help when we could, but see how they conducted a private practice, and one of the times I inherited was the Grunigen, Edward Jones office and it was a time when something had happened to Eddie Jones and he was in the hospital and there was a lot I could help Fory (Dr. Grunigen) do.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. He was an urologist at the time.
Dr. MacCracken: Urologist at the time.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay.
Dr. MacCracken: But I mean that was when my close association with Fory developed.
Dr. Seffinger: What was he like?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh he was a very likeable individual and I remember one time something was bothering him and I know I got him on the table and I was loosening up his shoulder, which he was kind of a lug to treat.
Dr. Seffinger: He was a big guy.
Dr. MacCracken: Oh yeah.
Dr. Seffinger: Yeah, but you didn’t know at the time or you weren’t involved much at that time he was becoming president or becoming involved…you weren’t involved with any of that?
Dr. MacCracken: No, no, no, at this point he was just the junior member of that office.
Dr. Seffinger: Right, and then later on you got to know him better and decades later you were…
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you know Dorothy Marsh at all?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh heavens yes. Dorothy and I lived in the same apartment house at one time. Her mother and my mother had gone to the same old boarding school. I sort of followed Dorothy along two years later what she had done in student body affairs I did two years later.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, so you were involved with the leadership as a student?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh yes.
Dr. Seffinger: In particular with the women in leadership rolls?
Dr. MacCracken: Not necessarily just the women.
Dr. Seffinger: And did you continue that when you left school as well?
Dr. MacCracken: I’ve always been involved with organizational affairs no matter what the organization.
Dr. Seffinger: Were you involved with the COA ever, the California Osteopathic Association?
Dr. MacCracken: Technically yes. I was there, I don’t know what you would call it, but the Maternal and Child Health representative, but at that point of time there wasn’t much I could do. I went to some meetings. The state, when they were getting ready for White House conferences, I went to those meetings, but then they involved more than just doctors and so, but that’s about the only thing from that standpoint that I was ever involved with on COA.
Dr. Seffinger: When you went to Public Health were you participating with the CMA at all or did you kind of get out of being associated with profession and was focused pretty much on Public Health?
Dr. MacCracken: Well you see I was EN at this point you were getting ready for this is 1960 you are getting ready for the MD degree.
Dr. Seffinger: Well, once you got the MD degree though….
Dr. MacCracken: But what I meant was anything about the profession as a whole was making a marked change.
Dr. Seffinger: Right, but then did you continue on with your new profession which would have been the CMA, AMA and all that, did you get board certified at all?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh, yes, I became board certified by the Board of Preventive Medicine in Public Health.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and when was that? Was that before or after?
Dr. MacCracken: That would have been about, oh this would have been considerably after because it was not the Osteopathic Board it was the American Board of Preventive Medicine.
Dr. Seffinger: And they took at that time only MDs or they took DOs too?
Dr. MacCracken: Well no, they would only be taking MDs because this was after the merger, very definitely.
Dr. Seffinger: This was the National Association?
Dr. MacCracken: Yes.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, so there was still discrimination going on even after?
Dr. MacCracken: Well, you were an MD and the DOs had their own Boards.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay.
Dr. MacCracken: Their own certifying boards in pediatrics, surgery or what have you, I guess they still do.
Dr. Seffinger: Yeah, now-a-days you can go across.
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah, there’s a lot of crossing over.
Dr. Seffinger: Yeah. Okay and so you really moved more toward local organizations than national or state after you went to Public Health, you really focused on the County and their problems as a full time endeavor. You had a lot more people to take care of. Okay
Dr. MacCracken: And as I said, I was involved with a lot of outside activities, for example, having nothing to do with the profession, but the church I belonged in Los Angeles, First Congregational had a day school, K through 12 and I was on their board and chairman of that board for several years. So I had outside activities of that type having nothing to do with the profession, but it kept me busy.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. Did you interact with or know Steven Teale?
Dr. MacCracken: Oh yeah, he was a classmate; he was a classmate at Fresno State.
Dr. Seffinger: Really, so you know him from way back. What can you tell us about him?
Dr. MacCracken: All I can tell you is the day he walked into class wearing bib overalls, striped blue and white bib overalls…
Dr. Seffinger: Was he a farmer?
Dr. MacCracken: And a stalk of unruly blond hair. Well he came from up there in the mountains.
Dr. Seffinger: And that’s where he went back to practice?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah. I was trying to think actually where he came from. But I know that his family had been amongst the old timers that came in…not with the Donner Party, but I mean that came in to that northern area. I’m trying to think whom his family came with, but I’ve forgotten.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay and then he became a senator, a state senator?
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right a state senator.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you know him during that time period? Talking with him?
Dr. MacCracken: I really didn’t have any contacts with him.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you know his family?
Dr. MacCracken: I knew his wife very well because we had been in school and lived in the same house that I lived in, so I knew Barbara very well.
Dr. Seffinger: She also became a DO, didn’t she?
Dr. MacCracken: Yes.
Dr. Seffinger: Did she practice, do you know? I don’t know if she had a practice.
Dr. MacCracken: I can’t tell you. I don’t know that
Dr. Seffinger: I know she had three children…Do you know about her family at all?
Dr. MacCracken: I just know that she and the children were killed in an automobile accident.
Dr. Seffinger: And that was about when, do you have any idea?
Dr. MacCracken: I have no idea.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, have you any recollection of talking with Dr. Teale after that incident?
Dr. MacCracken: No.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. And you haven’t seen or heard from him all these years?
Dr. MacCracken: No.
Dr. Seffinger: So, his family we don’t, you don’t know….
Dr. MacCracken: No knowledge.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. Anybody else that you think that we should interview or be part of this historical…that we should mention in this realm, somebody who was instrumental in developing either the school or osteopathic profession in general?
Dr. MacCracken: Most of those that I would know are dead.
Dr. Seffinger: Do their families maintain any historical information that you should I should look into
Dr. MacCracken: There are possibly a couple of people. One of them is here in Fresno by the name of Kenneth O’Brien who is retired and if you can catch up with him, it’s hard to do, but Kenneth always practiced as a general practitioner here in Fresno.
Dr. Seffinger: And what was his role?
Dr. MacCracken: Other than being a osteopathic general practitioner all the time?
Dr. Seffinger: And he can give us his perspective on…
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah, on his perspective. He’s retired and busy. He’s down at the community hospital a couple of time a week on the information desk. He helps one day a week. He’s out with the church another day of the week.
Dr. Seffinger: Are you still in contact with him
Dr. MacCracken: Oh yeah, I catch up with Kenny. I had dinner with him a couple of months ago.
Dr. Seffinger: Did you mention this project to him?
Dr. MacCracken: No.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. Maybe you could help connect me with him.
Dr. MacCracken: I can give you his phone number and address.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, see if he’s interested in participating.
Dr. MacCracken: The only other person that occurs to me is a pediatrician by the name of William Cheverton. I think I have an address on him. I think he is living down in Coronado now. He might or might not be able to because he entered the college far enough back that he might or might not be of any help.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. And your Dad’s records and documents from his work, do you know where they are?
Dr. MacCracken: If you are talking about honors that came to him, yes. If you are talking about any of his practice, no.
Dr. Seffinger: Well, I guess documents concerning the events and things that he did in his life and his involvement with the profession and his papers or his professional papers, things like that.
Dr. MacCracken: I have the one paper here from the osteopathic forum that we can do some reprints on. I have the clippings when he was awarded the Golden Capsule as a Family Practitioner of the Year and that was the first time that was awarded.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, that would be helpful. And did he have other papers that he left to the family or gave to a library anywhere or a class anywhere?
Dr. MacCracken: He gave all his old Kirksville memorabilia, like the yearbooks and that sort of thing, he sent back to Kirksville. What was in it, I don’t know. His osteopathic library is down in Pomona.
Dr. Seffinger: Would that be Pomona or would that be Irvine?
Dr. MacCracken: No, Pomona.
Dr. Seffinger: Pomona, so all his books were sent to the new school?
Dr. MacCracken: Any thing he had on osteopathy is down there and think that’s where you got your little Louisa Burns’ papers.,
Dr. Seffinger: Okay. So his personal library and books are at Pomona. I’ll have to look for those there. Forrest Grunigen has a 50 year old file of his papers and letters. It’s huge - from 1940 to 1990 - did your Dad keep a file like that that you know of. Okay. Let me look at the questions to see if we have covered all of our questions that we had come to ask and have you answer. Okay. We talked a lot of these things. Okay.
Dr. MacCracken: Question number three I might ask my sister about.
Dr. Seffinger: The unique and differences of the profession, oh you mentioned a little before about your concept or your family’s concept of what an osteopathic physician was…
Dr. MacCracken: No, no, that wasn’t the one. Did you notice any unique or difference about DOs and their profession. No, that isn’t the one. I thought it was one that related to…
Dr. Seffinger: There is one at the end about…
Dr. MacCracken: In connection with the differences between DOs and MDs. That’s the way we interpreted it.
Dr. Seffinger: Yeah, did you notice any difference between DOs and MDs when you came into the profession and when…
Dr. MacCracken: Well, when we grew up some of our closest friends were the children of MDs and mainly church associations and as I talked to my sister about it she said the only thing that she could think of was we couldn’t practice in their hospitals, except for Tom Sample, but as I say they were just doctors.
Dr. Seffinger: Right and when for interest, you didn’t practice manual medicine or manipulation or osteopathic treatment -Your dad did - did you feel that you were able…?
Dr. MacCracken: I just didn’t have the occasion to. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in it. And I used it when there was an occasion, but most of the time there wasn’t an occasion.
Dr. Seffinger: And that mattered to you?
Dr. MacCracken: No, I mean it was just, just didn’t…as Dad looked upon his professional work, sure, he felt that manipulation was the most important part of his armamentarium, but if drugs were necessary, so what.
Dr. Seffinger: He would use them.
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah, he would use them.
Dr. Seffinger: Did he ever talk to you about how you should practice or did he let you do your own thing?
Dr. MacCracken: No, no.
Dr. Seffinger: That was your own decision?
Dr. MacCracken: Yup.
Dr. Seffinger: And the same with your mom?
Dr. MacCracken: Yeah. But I mean he just looked upon it as part of his armentarium for the care of people and while one was, he stressed the one he didn’t exclude the others. He certainly…I can him remember him calling on a cardiologist for a consultation when it was a patient that he felt the problems were beyond his general skills, so he worked well with them.
Dr. Seffinger: So he referred to MDs and they referred back to him sometimes too?
Dr. MacCracken: I can’t say that. I think it was a one way street.
Dr. Seffinger: Was there much interaction with chiropractors in your profession?
Dr. MacCracken: No.
Dr. Seffinger: Okay, do you have any advice for future osteopathic physicians in training?
Dr. MacCracken: I feel that they really should be considering the total individual and not strictly his medical needs. He needs to be an overall physician that considers their emotional and what-have-you that makes them tick.
Dr. Seffinger: Taking care of the whole person.
Dr. MacCracken: That’s right, taking care of the whole person.
Dr. Seffinger: And you had a recent experience with a doctor?
Dr. MacCracken: I had a recent experience with a doctor on a knee problem that was also affecting my back and he said “I’m not interested in your back I’m only interested in your knee”, in other words the interrelationship didn’t occur to him.
Dr. Seffinger: Do you have any advice for future allopathic physicians?
Dr. MacCracken: My advice for them is that…it’s my understanding they’re having to start to specialize about the end of their junior year or begin to think whether they want to be a pediatrician or what-have-you and I think it’s mistake.
Dr. Seffinger: What would you suggest?
Dr. MacCracken: I think they need more general information about everything before they decide to specialize. It’s too early, too early in their medical careers - for me it is.
Dr. Seffinger: When do you think it would be a good time…after internship or…?
Dr. MacCracken: I think after they’ve had some good overall clinical practice. Now how they are getting it in medical schools right now, I don’t know. I just know, we as externs at the County Hospital were exposed to everything and it wouldn’t have been, if you were going to specialize, it wouldn’t have been too late or too early, but I think they need a…certainly a more…
Dr. Seffinger: More of a broad base.
Dr. MacCracken: Okay is there anything else that you would like to talk about or discuss in relation to osteopathy in California.
Dr. MacCracken: I think we’ve covered the waterfront.
Dr. Seffinger: You did a great job. I appreciate your time and your interest in this project and thank you very much for your participation.